Waking Up to Boys (3 page)

“Hey!” she called after him. Sebastian turned, and she waved him back over with one hand. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m kind of having a rough night. And I’m not used to being…Well, guys here aren’t usually that direct.”

Meaning guys aren’t that direct with
me, Chelsea thought.

“Do you mind if I sit down?” Sebastian asked.

“Not at all,” Chelsea said, scooting over to make room for him on the rock. “And actually, I’ll take that beer if you’re still offering.”

“Of course.” Sebastian handed her the beer and sat down next to her. “Salut.”

Chelsea clinked her bottle against his and took a gulp. “So, you’re from Brazil, huh?”

“Yes.” Sebastian nodded. “And you…where are you from?”

“Me?” Chelsea asked in surprise. Everyone knew where she was from. “I’m from here.”

“Lake Tahoe?” Sebastian asked. “This town?”

Chelsea was about to open her mouth and tell Sebastian that she’d grown up right there at the resort when she realized something: Sebastian was probably the only guy at the party who wasn’t making a big deal out of the fact that she was the bosses’ daughter.

“Around here, yeah,” she said vaguely.

Sebastian nodded, biting his lower lip in a really cute way. Chelsea noticed that he had very straight teeth. “And you’re a wakeboarding instructor?”

“Well…this’ll be my first summer teaching,” Chelsea said. “But I’ve been boarding for years.”

“You like it?”

“Love it,” Chelsea said confidently, taking another sip of beer. “It’s my favorite thing in the world. You feel that way about tennis?”

“Playing, yes,” Sebastian said. “Not so much competing. But I
love
teaching. To see my students when they get it. There’s a little spark when something I tell them just clicks. It’s great.”

“I’m a little nervous about teaching,” Chelsea admitted. “I’ve never done it before. I’m not even that great with kids.”

Sebastian shrugged. “It’s not that hard,” he said. “Just remember to make it fun. That’s what summer vacation is about.”

“I guess,” Chelsea mused. For her, summers had always been about work: lifeguarding, practicing her
wakeboarding, and helping her parents keep the resort running smoothly.

“Don’t
you
like to have fun in the summer?” Sebastian asked, smiling. He leaned closer to her: so close to her that she could feel his breath tickling her ear.

Was it her imagination, or was Sebastian hitting on her? Chelsea couldn’t be sure—it wasn’t exactly like she got hit on every day.

“I guess so,” she said quietly, inadvertently matching Sebastian’s sultry, confidential tone.

“I certainly plan to,” Sebastian said, locking eyes with her again.

“Yeah,” Chelsea blurted out. “Er, I mean, yes. Me, too.”

Chelsea was still trying to figure out what exactly Sebastian was thinking. She hoped she didn’t seem as nervous as she felt, trying on this whole flirting thing.

A loud crash of branches behind them made her jump. Todd and Vanessa emerged from the woods, their fingers interlocked.

“I know, it’s beautiful at night,” Todd was saying. Chelsea’s stomach curdled.

“Mmm, thanks for showing me,” Vanessa replied, leaning over and kissing him gently on the cheek. “Want a beer?”

“Sure,” Todd agreed.

As they passed Chelsea, Todd’s eyes met hers for a few agonizing seconds and he raised an eyebrow at her, then looked away.

“Chelsea?”

Chelsea suddenly remembered that Sebastian was sitting right next to her. She focused her gaze on him and did her best impersonation of a sunny smile. “Yeah?” she asked.

“I was saying, it’s a little smoky over here—want to go somewhere a little more quiet?” Sebastian asked, taking her hand in his warm palm.

Chelsea glanced over at Todd one last time. He was standing by the fire with his back to her and his arm draped over Vanessa’s shoulders, laughing at something that one of the bike shop boys had said.

Chelsea took a deep breath.
Mission: Moving On begins….

“Yes,” Chelsea told Sebastian, giving his hand a squeeze. “I would like that very much.”

I
am not freaking out on the inside,
Chelsea told herself as she walked hand in hand with Sebastian down the narrow path to the dock.
I am calm and collected, as if I go sneaking around late at night with hot random Brazilian guys I’ve just met all the time. This is utterly normal, and I am relaxed.

Yeah. What a crock. Chelsea had the feeling that Sebastian could feel her hand sweating. She knew they weren’t going somewhere quieter and more secluded just to talk. Sebastian was gorgeous and he was into her. Plus, he was pretty much the first guy to show interest in her since Pete Frasier in the seventh grade, who had kissed her once during spin the bottle and dribbled all over her chin. He had moved to Colorado the next year
and sent her lovelorn e-mails until, presumably, he got over her and got on with his life. But Sebastian was
way
cuter than Pete Frasier: He had beautiful eyes and nice smooth skin and a sexy accent. Besides, Chelsea was tired of being the untouchable daughter-of-the-boss tomboy whom all the guys at the resort treated like a kid sister instead of a potentially datable girl. She wanted someone to see in her whatever it was that Todd saw in Vanessa that made him take her into the woods. She wanted someone to think she was hot.

“Uhm, want to sit in one of the boats?” Chelsea asked. There were no real seats on the dock, which was usually damp and slippery. Plus, maybe being on the water would calm her down a little.

“Whatever you’d like,” Sebastian said. He climbed into the nearest motorboat, which had a wide vinyl backseat, then held out his hand to help Chelsea in as well. She almost laughed at the gesture—as
if
she couldn’t get into a boat by herself!—but thought better of it. She recalled Leo helping Sara into the boat on the way to the party—why not enjoy a little princess treatment herself?

She slipped into the backseat next to Sebastian and turned off her headlamp, which she had been carrying as a flashlight. A milky, moonlit darkness enveloped them, and the sounds of the night seemed to sharpen: the faint beat of Yo La Tengo from the boom box up by
the fire, a muffled shriek, an owl hooting, and the gentle
slap-slap
of the lake against the fiberglass sides of the boat.

Sebastian put his arm around her shoulders, and Chelsea slowly got used to its warmth and weight. She wasn’t used to having a guy hold her like that, and it felt nice.

“I love it out here on the lake,” she told Sebastian. “It really is my favorite place in the world.”

“It’s beautiful,” he agreed. “Like you.”

Chelsea couldn’t help giggling at the cheesy line, and after a moment Sebastian joined her.

“I’m sorry,” he apologized, keeping a hand on her shoulder as she shook with more giggles, gently rocking the boat so that it sent tiny ripples out over the water. “Give me a break—not everyone can be a bitter, sarcastic American like the teenagers on your TV shows.”

“Like me,” Chelsea said quietly.

“No, not like you,” Sebastian replied earnestly, taking both her hands in his. “You’re beautiful. And deep inside, you are passionate, too. I can see it in your eyes.”

I think this is the part where we’re supposed to kiss,
Chelsea thought as Sebastian leaned in and placed his lips gently over hers.
And I think I’m supposed to close my eyes.

She felt the beer buzzing inside her head as she relaxed in Sebastian’s arms and let him kiss her. It was
nothing
like kissing Pete Frasier in the seventh grade. Sebastian’s lips were soft and full, but firm underneath. Chelsea had never felt anything like this before. She nestled in closer to him, parting her lips just a little as he started taking tiny sips from her mouth. His hands massaged her back and roamed up to her neck, and one of them expertly removed the elastic on her ponytail while the other stroked her hair, starting from underneath where it met the nape of her neck and moving up to circle her ear, making her shiver against him.

She gently grabbed the back of his head and pulled him closer, not really knowing what she was doing and not really caring. All she knew was that whatever Sebastian was doing was not something she wanted to stop. She couldn’t believe it: Here she was, hooking up with a boy she had just met! She pulled back a little so she could get another look at his face in the moonlight.

The back of her neck tingled where he had caressed it.

Sebastian tilted his head, grinning at her sweetly. Then his face seemed to brighten dramatically, as if it had been caught in the beam of a flashlight. Only then did Chelsea see the bobbing rays of light and hear the oddly familiar voices of the first wave of people approaching the docks, ready to turn in for the night.

“I think it’s great that you guys come out here and do
this,” a female voice was saying. “I’d love to see the island during the day.”

Vanessa’s sleek dark head was the first to pop out from the shadow of the trees, followed by Todd, Sara, and Leo. Chelsea immediately scooted out of Sebastian’s arms and into the corner of the boat.

“Yeah, well, we’ll keep ’em coming, hot and spicy, all summer long,” Leo joked, mimicking a radio announcer.

Vanessa’s burbling giggle spewed out over the lake, competing with Sara’s mellow, silvery laugh. As they approached the boat, Chelsea had to shield her eyes against the bright glare coming from Todd’s flashlight.

“Chelsea.” Todd looked confused. “I was wondering where you’d gone off to. Didn’t want to lose Daddy’s little girl on her first night out.” He laughed at his own joke and then paused, looking from her to Sebastian and then back again. “What are you doing?”

The same thing you were doing in the woods with Vanessa,
Chelsea wanted to reply. But Sebastian stepped in for her.

“Chelsea was just showing me the boat,” he told Todd.

“Yeah?” Todd cocked an eyebrow, and then he grinned. “She show you the dent where she hit it the first time she tried a one-eighty? I’ve never seen a human body slam into fiberglass that hard.”

Everyone laughed, and Chelsea felt her cheeks go
scarlet. Did he really have to go there with all those other people around? Now she was more determined than ever to show him up this summer. She knew the only way she could put him in his place was by beating him at the Challenge. Just imagining it brightened her mood.

“If you look closely, there are a couple of Todd-induced scratches on this boat, too,” she shot back. She felt a small surge of triumph as everyone else enjoyed a laugh at Todd’s expense.

Todd scowled and changed the subject. “The girls got too cold, so we’re heading back now,” he said. “You guys coming with us or riding the next wave in?”

“Unfortunately, I have an early lesson tomorrow morning,” Sebastian said. “Otherwise I would love to stay.”

Todd climbed into the driver’s seat, guiding Vanessa into the seat beside him, and started the engine before everyone else was even settled.

They went speeding across the lake so fast that Chelsea had to grab on to Sebastian to steady herself. “Todd, be careful!” she shouted toward him. “Don’t overshoot the headlights!”

“Thanks, but I know how to drive one of these things,” Todd sneered, nevertheless bringing the boat down to a safer speed. Chelsea couldn’t help wondering what his deal was.

Todd drove with one hand on the wheel and used the other to hold on to Vanessa. Chelsea watched, a feeling rising in her chest, but then she felt Sebastian’s hand slip stealthily around hers. “Thank you for, you know, showing me the boat,” he whispered in her ear. A sweet, rushing feeling coursed through her body as their fingers intertwined in the darkness, and she gave him a tiny thank-you squeeze back.

S
top horsing around back there!” Chelsea yelled from the back of the boat. She squinted out at the nine-and six-year-old McCullough brothers, who were each trying to jostle the other into the wake.

The boys paid no attention. For the past half hour, she had been trying to get them to take the sport seriously, but they were acting like the lake was a ball pit in a McDonald’s playground. Mike rammed his body hard into Matt’s side, sending his older brother sprawling into the chilly blue water.

“Ouch, you jerk!” Matt struggled to regain his footing and fell backward again as the boat hit a small rough patch.

“Ha-ha, dumbbell!” Mike stuck his tongue out at his
brother and suddenly lost his balance, plunging into the wake as well. “Aw, crap—that’s cold.”

“Stop the boat,” Chelsea hissed to Nina, who obediently slowed down. Chelsea stood up on the back of the boat and grabbed the towrope for balance. “Okay, guys, get in here,” she called to the McCullough boys, who continued to goof off as if they hadn’t heard her. How did Todd manage to command so much respect from his students? All he had to do was raise an eyebrow and they jumped to follow his instructions.

“I mean it,” Chelsea shouted to the boys from the boat, careful to keep herself steady. “It’s time to come in.
Now!”

The boys wailed in protest. “Do we
have
to?” Matt whined, bobbing up and down in the water.

“Right this second,” Chelsea insisted. “Before I come out there and make you regret talking back to me.”

Fear flashed in their eyes, and Matt was silent for once. Mike’s lower lip began to tremble, and Chelsea immediately felt bad. She hadn’t meant to be so harsh, but the boys were grating on her last remaining nerve. They swam awkwardly toward the boat, and Chelsea leaned down to fish them out of the water.

“Now listen,” she firmly reprimanded them, a hand on each of their shoulders. “Wakeboarding is a privilege, okay? Your parents would rather I refund their money than bring home two mangled boys dumb enough to
shove each other around a boat with a big powerful motor on it.”

At that, Mike lost the battle for control of his lower lip and burst into tears. “I’m gonna be mangled, and it’s all your fault!” he cried.

Matt shot Chelsea the evil eye. “Now look what you did,” he snapped. “Mikey, it’s okay. She doesn’t know what she’s talking about…. She’s just being mean.”

Chelsea sighed deeply. Teaching wakeboarding was way harder than she had anticipated. In the few days she’d been teaching, she was shocked by how bad people were at following instructions and paying attention. She just didn’t get it. If people were shelling out so much money to learn to wakeboard, wouldn’t they actually want to learn
how
? Yet nearly every lesson ended with her either clenching her teeth in frustration or fishing bedraggled would-be boarders out of the lake. It was beyond irritating, and Chelsea had nearly had enough. If this were an ordinary job, she might have considered quitting. But her father had trusted her with this. And she couldn’t let him down over a few silly tourists. She could do this.

“Listen, I’m sorry.” She awkwardly patted the still-weeping Mike McCullough’s spiky wet hair. She glanced at her waterproof Fossil. “Hey, your lesson is almost over. Let’s head back to shore, and I’ll give you guys some coloring books that I have on water safety.”

Matt sniffed. “We’re too old for coloring books.” Mike tugged on Matt’s life vest and pulled him closer to whisper something in his ear. Matt rolled his eyes and addressed Chelsea again. “But I guess we’ll take them anyway.”

Chelsea nodded and turned her face away from them as Nina started the motor again and began to drive back to the dock. Chelsea watched the sunlight glint on the water’s surface, refracting it into millions of tiny diamonds. It was a beautiful, clear day in the mountains, and she was not going to let one lousy morning lesson ruin it. She was just finding her inner calm when she felt a sharp, wet little poke on her arm and turned to see Matt prodding her.

“Yes?” She smiled, trying to hide her irritation.

“Do you have a boyfriend?” Matt looked up at her with large blue eyes that could almost be considered angelic…if she didn’t know what a little devil he actually was.

The question caught Chelsea off guard—not only because it was inappropriate, but also because she didn’t really know how to answer it. She remembered her first night with Sebastian, how they had kissed in the boat and he had held her hand all the way home. The day after the island party, Chelsea hadn’t seen Sebastian until the staff gathered at their table in the far back corner of the giant high-ceilinged dining hall for dinner.
Her stomach had clenched so hard when she first looked into Sebastian’s wide, dark eyes that she had nearly doubled over, but Sebastian just smiled as if they had a secret and he was happy about it. And that’s exactly what he had said later that night, after catching up with her on the gravel path leading from the main lodge and walking with her down to the trees at the edge of the tennis courts.

“Are you sure you don’t mind keeping this a secret for now?” Chelsea had asked. “Because—and I know this is going to sound weird, but—my parents are your bosses and, well…” She trailed off, unwilling to admit that she had never had a guy in her life for her parents to decide whether or not to disapprove of.

“It’s fine,” Sebastian had said, drawing her in closer to him for a long, deep kiss that left her breathless and shivering.

And that’s how it had started. It had become almost a ritual over the past few days for him to slip discreetly out of the dining hall after dinner and wait for her around the corner of the lodge. Then they’d walk until they found somewhere secluded—a grove in the woods, the deserted dock over by the staff barracks, or the gear shed behind the tennis courts where nobody ever went at night. They would sink to the ground, barely touching the cool grass before attacking each other with their lips and hands. Sometimes they just lay together in the
cool night air and talked as they looked up at the stars. Sebastian was easy to talk to: mellow, sweet, and full of stories about touring the world for tennis tournaments.

Chelsea went home each night and sneaked into bed feeling suffused in Sebastian, the sharp, sweet smell of his shampoo on her clothes and hands, the taste of his breath still in her mouth, and the imprint of his lips on her neck. She couldn’t believe that, after years of watching all the other summer staffers hook up, she finally had a boy of her own. At the same time, she kept suppressing the nagging voice in the back of her head asking if Sebastian was really the
right
guy. Sure, he was handsome, sweet, and a really good kisser, but at times she felt like something was missing. If only she could figure out
what.

“Hel-
loooo
!” Matt poked her several more times in the arm, jolting her back to her lesson on the lake. “
Chelseeeeeeea
…do you have a boyfriend or not? Because if not, Mikey wants to ask you out.”

Matt dissolved into giggles as his little brother pummeled him to the boat’s floor. Chelsea sighed and looked back out over the water.

Chelsea’s stomach grumbled as she approached the lodge, and she realized that she’d missed lunch. She’d
lingered too long in the shower after her lesson, trying to wash off Matt’s comments and the jittery feeling that crept over her whenever she thought too much about her make-out sessions with Sebastian. She approached the dining hall and pushed through the heavy double doors that separated the grand, open dining space from the industrial kitchen. Opening one of the oversized fridges, she found several pans of leftover lasagna from the night before. She scooped a chunk onto one of the resort’s earth-colored ceramic plates, popped it into the microwave, and leaned against the counter to relax until it was done.

She was thirty-four seconds away from a piping hot plate of lasagna when the doors swung open and Sara bustled into the kitchen, muttering to herself over a book she held open in her hand. She was clearly engrossed in whatever she was reading and paying so little attention to her surroundings that she banged her hip against a counter. Sara swore softly under her breath and hurried to the glass-doored beverage refrigerator, where she haphazardly removed a Vitamin Water.

Chelsea craned her neck to see what Sara was reading and realized it was a plant identification guide. Just then the microwave beeped. Sara yelped and nearly leapt out of her skin…dribbling purple Vitamin Water down the front of her white ruffled peasant blouse.

“Damn!” she cried. Looking up, she finally realized
that Chelsea was in the room, too, and Sara forced herself to smile—even though Chelsea could tell it was an effort. “Oh, hi, Chels,” she said absently, looking down at the stain as if she could will it away with her glare.

“Are you okay?” Chelsea asked, scrambling to get some paper towels from over the sink. This was the first time she’d ever seen Sara get flustered. It was strangely refreshing.

“Oh yeah, I’m fine.” Sara grimaced as she dabbed at the growing purple splotch on her shirt.

“You sure?”

“It’s just…well, I’m giving my first nature walk in half an hour, and I had that outfit planned for the past week. Now I have to go find something else because my shirt is ruined,” Sara admitted. “I should go change.”

“Do you want me to go back to the house with you?” Chelsea offered. Normally she wouldn’t have, but Sara was acting like such a basket case that without supervision Chelsea was afraid that she would just put on the same shirt, only backward and inside out, and then probably tell Chelsea’s parents that it had all been their daughter’s fault.

“Yeah!” Sara brightened. “That would be great.”

Gulping down her lasagna in two bites, Chelsea put the dirty plate in the sink and followed Sara out the doors of the kitchen, through the empty dining room, and into the bright afternoon sunlight.

“I can’t believe you’re so nervous,” she said to Sara as they hurried up the path to their house.

“Oh, I hate public speaking,” Sara admitted. “Half the time I get so nervous, I nearly throw up beforehand.”

“You seem like such a natural,” Chelsea said. “The way you spoke at the orientation and stuff.”

Sara laughed. “I’m guess I’m a good actress,” she said.

They reached the house, and the girls hurried upstairs. Sara went into her room and Chelsea hovered at the door, wondering if she should disappear into her own bedroom, but Sara motioned her inside. “Come on, I need your help,” she begged. “What do you think…does this look okay?” She pulled a soft cotton American Apparel wrap dress with thin lavender stripes from her closet and frowned.

“It’s nice,” Chelsea said, feeling awkward that Sara was asking her for fashion advice. Had she not noticed that Chelsea basically lived in wetsuits and track pants?

“Yeah…,” Sara said skeptically. “Yeah, but too girly. I need something more authoritative and better for hiking.”

She rummaged in her closet and came up with a cream-colored button-down shirt with a green fern print from Banana Republic.

“I like it,” Chelsea said. “The leaves are perfect for a nature walk.”

“Yeah?” Sara slipped off her ruined blouse and tossed it in the corner of the room, pulling on the new shirt and buttoning it up, leaving it just a little open around her neck. She twirled around so Chelsea could get a better look. “What do you think?”

A stab of jealousy shot through Chelsea when she saw how good Sara looked. The blouse hugged her curves, showing and hiding skin in just the right places, her tan radiant against the cream-colored fabric. Even though Sara had planned her whole outfit, the blouse swapped in perfectly to match her dark trouser jeans and brown leather sandals. “You look great,” Chelsea admitted, looking down at her own shorts and flip-flops, which suddenly seemed very boring.

Sara acted unusually happy with Chelsea’s answer. “I’m so glad!” she chirped. “I haven’t even worn this yet, but I knew it would come in handy sometime.”

“Oh. Yeah,” Chelsea said dubiously. She bought only clothes that were super-comfortable, and that she knew she would actually wear.

“Okay, almost showtime,” Sara murmured, probably more to herself than Chelsea. She suddenly looked nervous again, as she took a couple of small sips from her Vitamin Water. “You’re coming, right?”

Chelsea had actually been planning to go wakeboarding instead, but Sara was looking at her so expectantly that she couldn’t think of a way out.

She followed Sara’s brisk stride to the meeting point by the lake, and Chelsea couldn’t help being worried for her. She knew the Glitterlake Resort summer tourist crowd pretty well—well enough to know that the
last
thing they’d want to do on a balmy Saturday afternoon in the recreation capital of Northern California was take two hours to go on a nature hike and learn how to identify plants. Tourists around Tahoe liked action, partying, and spending money, and that translated into sports, nightlife, and gambling. Nature walks just didn’t fit into the equation, and even though Chelsea wasn’t crazy about her half sister’s sudden and unexpected intrusion into her life, she wasn’t looking forward to watching her learn all of this the hard way.

The girls rounded the bend leading up to the trailhead of the small, seldom-used two-mile hiking trail that wound its way around the resort’s property. Chelsea stopped, shocked when she saw a crowd of at least thirty people. She picked out her mother and father immediately, and a few of the elderly couples and families staying at the resort. But the biggest surprise was the sheer number of guys in their late teens and early twenties who had, apparently overnight, developed a rampant curiosity about plant identification. Amongst them she spotted Tim, Joel, Ted, Leo, and—Chelsea couldn’t believe it—Todd. The glare of the sunlight was pretty bright, but Chelsea would recognize
that thick dirty-blond hair and those piercing lake-colored eyes anywhere.

The crowd of guys broke into spontaneous applause and whistles when Sara approached. As she headed toward the front of the crowd, Sara’s shoulders straightened and her walk became more purposeful. By the time she turned to face them, every trace of the anxiety was gone from her face. She smiled and waved.